


And I Love Her

by Rubiconwrites



Category: Death in Paradise
Genre: F/F, F/M, oblivious Jack is oblivious
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-03-05
Updated: 2020-07-05
Packaged: 2021-02-28 18:01:07
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 2,989
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23031346
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Rubiconwrites/pseuds/Rubiconwrites
Summary: Jack is delighted to be finally meeting Siobhan's new girlfriend, he just doesn't know she has a surprise in store for him.Florence/Siobhan with a healthy side helping of Jack & Anna, Mooney family fun and Jack Mooney being the father figure we all secretly want.Title comes from Passenger's song And I Love Her which I thought about a lot while writing this
Relationships: Anna Houghton/Jack Mooney, Florence Cassell/Siobhan Mooney
Comments: 4
Kudos: 41





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Set ~18 months after Jack leaves Saint Marie, at the Mooney family home in London, and about 2 years (in my timeline) since Florence left. 
> 
> This is my first fic, so I'd love to hear what you think!
> 
> Hope you enjoy!

Hands on his hips, surveying his kingdom, Jack Mooney looked at the stove in exasperation. Steam was spiralling up from the pans crowding every part of the stove, and he ran a hand through his already ruffled hair. Behind him, there was the unmistakable sound of a phone buzzing followed by a small squeak of excitement, and Jack couldn’t help but smile as he turned around. It was the unmistakable sound of his daughter getting a text from her girlfriend.

“She says she just got on the tube, so she’ll be with us in about half an hour!” Siobhan came into the kitchen with a bounce in her step that had been almost permanent for the last six months.

“Good! Good… Good. Good.” Jack gave his daughter a smile and a small wave, but turned back to the stove with deep distrust in his eyes. “Now I _think_ I have everything under control here-“

“- And he hasn’t even ruined his shirt yet,” Anna commented from the doorway between the kitchen and the hall. “Which is a miracle, considering the mess Mooney’s Magic Meatballs have made of the rest of the kitchen.”

Jack opened his mouth to protest, but it was drowned out by Siobhan’s laughter. He relented, cracking a lop-sided grin that was almost a perfect match for his daughter’s. “Alright, alright, fair enough you two. I should have known you’d be ganging up on me,” he picked up a wooden spoon and gave the bubbling pot of sauce a stir, before wagging it in the direction of his daughter, “I just hope this girlfriend of yours will take my side. Of course, I don’t know that, I don’t know anything about the girl!”

Siobhan rolled her eyes fondly, and hopped up onto the counter next to the sink. Cutting off the speech she’d heard about a hundred times before, she shrugged with a winning smile. “Well after tonight you’ll know plenty about her, won’t you Dad?”

“You could at least tell us her name!” Jack pleaded, splattering yet more sauce across the work surface as he did.

“That’ll ruin the surprise Dad!” Siobhan gave him an infuriatingly innocent grin, as she jumped back down from the counter and went to fetch herself a glass of water.

“Now Anna, don’t you think it’d be polite if I knew the poor girl’s name before the door opens?” Jack turned to Anna in appeal, whose eyes widened for a second. Throwing up her hands in mock surrender, the older woman stepped into the kitchen and sat down at the breakfast table, safely out of range of sauce splashes.

“Oh don’t look at me,” she shook her head and tried to smile widely, “I am strictly impartial in Mooney battles.”

“That means she thinks I’m right-“ Both of the Mooney’s spoke at the exact same time. All three of them lapsed into laughter.

Anna watched in amazement at the pair of them, so similar, and so close that at moments like this she felt like she was intruding on something, even after being in Jack’s life for over a year. A phone buzzed again, and Siobhan pulled it out of her pocket and lit up, her eyes locked on the screen. Jack and Anna shared a glance, and both smiled. In that moment she knew exactly what he was thinking, that whoever this woman was, it didn’t matter what her name was, or who she was, as long she could make Siobhan smile like that.

“Ok, I have to finish my make-up,” Siobhan put her phone back down, and kissed her dad on the cheek suddenly. “Don’t burn the house down!” She waved over her shoulder on her way back through to the hall, at the last minute sticking her head back around the door. “Seriously, don’t let him burn the house down Anna,” she teased, “Emergency services don’t make a good impression.” With a grin, the younger woman vanished again.

“Cheek!” Jack exhaled, his hands on his hips again, but his eyes twinkling with amusement. “I honestly don’t know where she gets that from, I tell you, good as gold she was as a little girl and now would you look at her,” he rambled. Anna smiled at her boyfriend, feeling a wave of affection sweeping through her.

“Oh, I know where she gets it from -That pan’s about to boil over-“ She warned him, and Jack leapt around to slide the pan off the heat before it began spitting everywhere. Anna stood up, and circled her arms around his waist, resting her head on his shoulder from behind. “But she definitely gets it from you.”

Jack leaned his head towards hers. “Well with luck that’ll be the only thing she gets from me. Thank god her looks are all her mother’s!” Anna chuckled, but gave him a squeeze, reserved for when he was being too hard on himself. The pair stood in comfortable silence for a minute, before Jack heaved an overly dramatic, restless sigh.

“I just hope she’s nice. Whoever this girl is, you know? I can’t help it. Now I know, believe me, I know, that anyone who can make Siobhan smile like that must be something pretty special, but the last time she ended up with her heart broken, you know? To see her like that… no father would ever wish that for their little girl, and to see her hurt like that again is more than I can stomach, you know?” He spoke quickly, voice lowered as though afraid Siobhan would overhear somehow.

Anna smiled gently. They both knew a thing or two about heartbreak. “She’s young,” Anna shrugged, but her voice was kind. “Young people fall in love easily, and get their hearts broken easily. Even you can’t protect her from that.”

“I know,” Jack sighed again, and shook his head. “Ach. I know I’m being a silly old man, but I can’t help but worry.”

“I wouldn’t have it any other way.” Anna pressed a kiss to his cheek, and the Irishman’s face creased into a bashful grin.

“But it’s true, you know. The way that little face of hers lights up whenever her phone buzzes. Whoever this lady is, she’s definitely nice enough for my Siobhan to be head over heels about her. I just hope she’s all that and more.”

“Me too.”

“Now, you go and sit down. I’ll be with you in a minute, I promise. This sauce just needs a final stir.”

Anna made a sceptical noise in the back of her throat, but after a final squeeze, she let Jack go and returned to her seat at the table.

* * *

No sooner had Jack actually managed to join her, than the doorbell echoed through the house. There was a loud thud upstairs, and the scraping of the chair over the kitchen floor as Jack stood up again. “I’ll get it Dad! Just a second!” Siobhan yelled down the stairs, but Jack was already half way to the door.

“Don’t be daft! It’s throwing down with rain out there,” Jack chided as he strode along the hallway towards the front door, where a figure was silhouetted behind the frosted glass, on the front step of the house. Throwing open the door, Jack put on his very best ‘meeting the daughter’s new partner’ face, before it disappeared completely as a very familiar figure turned around to face the door, and the now gobsmacked detective standing inside it.

“Hello Sir,” Florence smiled, head tilted and one side, her voice lilting over the words as they always did.

It took Jack the best part of ten seconds to recover from the sight of his long-lost Detective Sergeant on his doorstep, but his face slowly lit up in a gigantic grin, that he couldn’t keep off his face even as he chastised his former junior officer. “Florence! All this way, and you couldn’t spare me a text to warn me?”

There was a thudding on the stairs behind him as Siobhan came sprinting down them and practically skidded to a halt at the bottom as she saw her father at the door. She and Florence locked eyes, and Siobhan lit up into a grin just like her father’s, but with the mischief twinkling behind her eyes. Florence raised a hand, shyly, and waved her fingers once. The two young women practically glowed, only with eyes for each other.

Jack, oblivious, stood back to allow Florence inside the house. “But what in the world are you doing here, Florence? Not that I’m not delighted to see you of course, but it’s something of a special occasion you see, we’re supposed to be meeting Siobhan’s new girlfriend you see and –“

Behind him, Siobhan’s eyebrows creased for a moment into a puzzled frown, before she realised his mistake, and began to giggle into her hand.

His flustered rambling was cut off as Anna joined them in the hall. She hung back slightly, one hand on the wall. “Hi,” she smiled warmly at the beautiful newcomer, “You must be Siobhan’s girlfriend? I’m Anna,” she welcomed Florence, who turned to her and smiled warmly in response, having heard enough about Anna to know she was already a big fan of the woman.

“Yes, I’m Florence.”

“Yeah, this is Florence.”

“No! This is Florence.”

All three of them answered at the exact same time.

Anna’s lips wavered with a laugh.

Siobhan was biting her lip to hold back the laughter. Florence turned to her mentor with hesitation in her expression.

Jack stared between the two of them in an eerily familiar expression, as though he was about to crack a particularly difficult case. First the eyebrows creased together in a puzzled frown, and then – Siobhan couldn’t help it. She burst out laughing as his eyebrows suddenly flew up his forehead as the realisation hit him.

“Well I’ll be… Isn’t that something!”


	2. Mooney's Magic Meatballs

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> After a slightly shaky start to the evening Jack has a new mystery to get to the bottom of... or 'another 1000+ words of me indulging myself with Florence & Siobhan being adorable, Jack being a sweetheart and Anna being Anna, plus the return of the infamous Mooney's Magic Meatballs

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> It's been a while but after having had this in my drafts for a long time, I decided it was finally time to get this chapter up there. I have plans for a couple more chapters of similarly plot-light, domestic-heavy self-indulgent Florence and Siobhan goodness up my sleeve, and thank you everyone so much for the kudos and kind words on the last chapter!

“I tell you both, you’ve had the wool pulled right over my eyes!” Jack chortled from the kitchen as he screwed the cork into the top of the bottle of wine Florence had brought with her. “I mean. Siobhan I can expect this sort of thing from, but you Florence? That was downright sneaky!” He kept teasing them out loud, even if he was still reeling -in the best possible way- from this discovery. His daughter, dating the warmest, most loyal and brave Detective Sergeant he’d ever worked with?  
But he may as well have been talking to thin air. In the living room, Florence and Siobhan might have been a thousand miles away. 

Reunited for the first time in weeks, the two women were lost in each other. Florence was sat at one end of the sofa, a beaming grin stretching her cheeks as she listened to her girlfriend catch her up on what she’d missed in the lead-up to the evening. Siobhan was curled up on the sofa, twisted to face Florence with her legs up over her girlfriend’s lap and her head propped up in one hand. She was talking with an animation in her eyes that made Anna, who was sat on the opposite sofa, feel as though she was intruding. 

Jack paused as he re-entered the room, and handed Anna a glass of wine. His free hand now on his hip, he watched the two young women talking so intensely and for just a second, he could have sworn he was back in Catherine’s bar when they had first arrived on Saint Marie. It felt like a lifetime ago, with Kathleen’s death so raw for both of them, and him so worried about Siobhan. But instead of resenting being pulled away from everything familiar and comforting, Siobhan had come alive in Saint Marie. He smiled to himself as a warm glow stirred in his chest. She’d come a long way, and in hindsight, perhaps there had been a common factor there...

“Dad? Are you ever going to sit down?”

“Hm?” Shaken from the memory, back to the very real, very present, night they were actually in. “Sorry my love, just a second!” Jack hurried back to the kitchen and returned with the last of the wine glasses, which he set down on the coffee table. 

“Now then!” Before he had even sat down, the inquisition began. “I didn’t even know you two had stayed in touch,” he threw up his hands, “-And I’m delighted you have! But how on earth did this come to be?”

Siobhan rolled her eyes dramatically. “Well these days Dad, we have this wonderful thing called the internet? And texting?”

Florence cast her girlfriend a loving look that clearly said ‘stop teasing’ and laid a hand over hers. “As you know, I took some time to travel. After …” She glanced down momentarily. “Patrice.” Siobhan shifted her hand, and laid it gently on Florence’s leg, rubbing it reassuringly. “And…” When she looked up again, the hint of sadness in her eyes was nothing compared to the love in them. “Siobhan reached out. To see how I was. We started talking more, and then met a few times when I came to London with work.” The two women locked eyes, lost in some distant memory of those meetings, of nervous laughter and tentative hands interlacing, “And suddenly something clicked.” Siobhan finished.

Jack cleared his throat, half trying to remind them they weren’t actually alone. Anna barely contained a smirk, as she watched in silence.   
“So. You’re working, Florence? What brought you to London?”

“Ah. Well, I ended up in Paris. After the travelling,” Florence explained softly, “And met an old friend, Camille. She knew someone at Interpol who was looking for a new investigator, and I decided I was ready to stop running for a while.”

“And that brings you to England a lot does it?”

“Dad!” Siobhan butted in, laughing. “Is this an interrogation, or a conversation?”

“She’s got a point,” Anna nudged Jack, who threw up his hands in mock surrender.

“Sorry. Old habits and all that! Not that I like all this ganging up on me. It was bad enough with just the two of them, you’ll have to be on my side Florence, surely?” Jack’s smile was so winning, that all Florence could do was laugh. 

“Of course, sir, we’re a pretty good team.” Florence took a sip of her wine. “And I’m sorry we didn’t tell you sooner.” She cast a glance at Siobhan, who gave a mischievous smile in response. “At first, it was all very new… And well, then Siobhan wanted to surprise you.”

“It was worth it!” The blonde woman insisted. “The look on your face was priceless, Dad. I can’t believe you thought Florence had just happened to show up on our doorstep at the same time my girlfriend was coming around! I wish I’d had my camera.”

Jack blushed, and waved off her teasing as he took a swig of his own wine, “I would have cracked it! But it certainly was a lovely surprise, Florence. It’s been far too long.” He raised his glass in a half-toast to her, and his former co-worker raised hers in response. 

“Absolutely, Sir.”

“Now you must call me Jack! Especially now, I’m not your boss any more Florence. Just Jack will do fine.”

Florence tilted her head, seeming to struggle with it for a second. “Very well…. Jack… And Anna? I have heard so much about you, it is a pleasure to meet you at last!”  
Anna jolted back to the conversation, with a smile, as Florence began to ask her polite questions.

\--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

It was another 20 minutes before the timer loudly rang from the kitchen, and Jack leapt up so suddenly he threatened to catapult his wine glass across the room. Thankfully, Anna managed to scoop it out of the way “You must excuse me! Dinner will just be a few more minutes. It’s Mooney’s Magic Meatballs, Florence, I hope you don’t mind-“

“But it’s the only recipe he knows,” Siobhan and Anna both chimed in unison, before turning to each other and laughing. Anna raised her glass to Siobhan, who nodded her head back.

“Now enough of that you two,” Jack chuckled, “It might be true, but Florence doesn’t need to know that, does she now?”  
“It will be perfect sir, sorry, Jack. My favourite.”

“Ah you see Florence, this is why you’re my favourite,” Jack gave her an indulgent smile.

“Oi!” Siobhan gasped.

“Can I help with anything?” Florence offered politely, but Jack waved her away and disappeared into the kitchen without another word. Siobhan and Anna picked up their conversation about all the latest drama going on between the management at Siobhan’s job and Florence sat back in the sofa. Her gaze drifted to Siobhan’s fingers intertwined with her own as she listened to Anna offering some advice on how to deal with the latest overbearing manager (which sounded suspiciously like what Florence herself had suggested). Anna seemed nice, she thought to herself. Of course she was, Jack could never end up with someone who was anything less than special, and what she’d heard from JP had been nothing but glowing compliments. It was good, this family deserved some happiness… Suddenly, she felt Siobhan squeeze her hand, and looked up to see the blonde looking at her with gentle concern in her eyes. “You ok?” She whispered as Anna left the room to go and help Jack with serving up. 

“Mmmm,” Florence nodded. “Sorry, I was just thinking.”

“You need a holiday, they’re working you too hard,” Siobhan softly chastised her, and brushed a few stray strands of hair back out of Florence’s face. “That last case sounded exhausting.”

“Perhaps I do. But you’ll have to come with me,” Florence tipped her head to one side, “Your work is hardly any better. So much drama!” She teased.

“Alright you two, come and get some food!” Jack called loudly from the next room.


End file.
